Biography

Dr. Raymond Patton came to John Jay College as Director of Educational Partnerships and General Education in 2016. His professional goal is to promote the design, delivery, and support of effective curriculum that teaches students knowledge, abilities, and capacities that they can transfer between courses and beyond the academy. He is particularly interested in strategies for fostering effective education at scale in the context of the constraints faced by institutions of higher education in the 21st century.

Dr. Patton’s area of scholarly expertise is in 20th century global, transnational, and Central/East European History, particularly with respect to popular culture. His monograph, Punk Crisis: The Global Punk Rock Revolution, was published by Oxford University Press in October, 2018. Dr. Patton’s teaching interests include modern global and European history courses, including the Cold War, Nazism/the Holocaust, and cultural history and popular culture. He has also taught HON 201: What is the Common Good? In the classroom, Dr. Patton’s goal is to provide guidance to students along their intellectual pursuits, using class time to model and experiment with inquiry, analysis, and communication on questions and topics that arise as students consider course materials.

Prior to coming to John Jay, Dr. Patton served as a faculty member in the Department of History, Director of the Core Curriculum, and Director of the Global and Transnational Studies program at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. There, he taught a variety of history and general education courses, including World History since 1500, Western Civilization II, Modern Europe, Revolutions 1789-1917, Russia and the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, Hitler and Stalin, Freshman Seminars on Music and Resistance and The Meaning of Life, and Global Foundations: Consumerism.

Dr. Patton received a PhD in History (2011) and a MA in Russian and East European Studies (2005) from the University of Michigan, and a BA degree with majors in History and Philosophy from the University of Georgia (2003).